America owes a huge debt of gratitude to Rod Rosenstein and Bob Mueller. At a time when so many Republicans have lost their courage, their morality and their brains, those two have stood for integrity and the rule of law. Many others on their staffs also deserve great credit.
What utter nonsense to hear Trump say we would have a good relationship with Putin if not for the Mueller investigation. In other words, if we would simply permit the Kremlin to manipulate our elections, further divide Americans and sow chaos, all would be well.
Goldberg saved the best for last, right before the dog updates:
The human mind has a tendency to impose causation and narrative on random events. And lots of people do this with Trump. When he threw Theresa May under the bus on Thursday night (the same day he was boasting about a great letter he got from Kim Jong-un), the immediate response from many on the left and the right was that he was up to something. He wasn’t. He just didn’t know what he was doing. That’s why at the press conference on Friday morning, he walked it all back. There was no plan, there was just his id galloping freely out of his mouth.
Just look at some of the things that he’s said overseas. He made up countless statistics about NATO expenditures and contributions. He, again, went on about how he was the first Republican to win Wisconsin in ages — a vital issue to the NATO alliance — insisting that Reagan lost the state. Reagan won Wisconsin twice. He said his father was born in Germany. That was his grandfather. He said, again, that he “understands nuclear” because his uncle was a physicist. In the Sun interview — which he now insists is fake news — he said many strange things, but my favorite was this
“You know, a poll just came out that I am the most popular person in the history of the Republican Party — 92 percent. Beating Lincoln. I beat our Honest Abe.”
For what it’s worth, Gallup introduced the first modern poll in 1936.
In the press conference Friday morning, he was asked if he would take to Twitter on his way home on Air Force One and bad mouth his allies — as he did after the G-7 summit. Trump replied:
“No, that’s other people that do that. I don’t. I’m very consistent.”
“I’m a very stable genius,” the president added.
Look, it’s funny trolling, I guess. And his genius at trolling is indeed very consistent. But come on. This is serious stuff. We may need to rethink all sorts of things, and I’m open to serious arguments about doing so. But in order to seriously rethink such things, it would be helpful to have a serious president who thinks.
Question
What is the penalty for interfering in an election?
What is the penalty for hacking an e-mail?
Suppose the 12 Russians did come over to face their accusers?
We have already seen that Muller can’t present it’s case against the Russian company it accused of malfeasance.
It seems that all the accusations of election tampering are against people who can’t/won’t defend themselves.
We need to see evidence.
Otherwise, I don’t believe none of this.
Meaningless charges that will never result in anyone suffering for their crimes. Mueller knows this too, but he’s just trying to save face by charging someone, anyone will do really, so that he doesn’t look like he wasted millions for nothing.
But that is what he’s done.
Ignore the desperate cries of the shills like Ricky. As evidenced above, they’ll latch on to and believe anything that comes down the pike. They’re too deeply invested to give up now, so it’s on to the next nonsense thing, and then the next fake scandal, or the next alleged collusion. But in the end, it’s all just noise.
Like the little boy who cried wolf, it’s gotten old, to the point where hardly anyone but the most partisan actors are even listening anymore. And so they rage………
More fake news spread among the true believers in the media. This is how fake news gains traction, when reporters are too lazy to do a little background work first and verify facts. It spreads when other lazy reporters share wrong info.
“A Washington Post reporter falsely claimed Friday that the beginning of the Russian effort to hack Hillary Clinton’s campaign emails came the very same day that her opponent, Donald Trump, called on Russia to find Clinton’s State Department emails.
On July 27, 2016, Trump spoke directly to Russia during a news conference. “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing,” he said, referring to Clinton’s deleted emails from her time as secretary of state.
The Trump administration would later claim the remarks were a joke, but the Clinton campaign criticized the comments at the time, saying, “This has to be the first time that a major presidential candidate has actively encouraged a foreign power to conduct espionage against his political opponent.”
After the Justice Department announced Friday that a federal grand jury indicted 12 Russian government officials for hacking the computer networks of Clinton and the Democratic Party, Washington Post reporter Christopher Ingraham tweeted a screenshot of a portion of the indictment, claiming that Russia’s hacking attempts began the very evening Trump made his remarks.”
——————-
“Ingraham’s tweet was widely retweeted and shared by other reporters and liberal pundits. He also posted a series of tweets calling the section of the indictment proof of “collusion” between Trump and the Russians.”
“Ingraham appears to have misunderstood the part of the indictment he screenshotted. It actually says that July 27 was “the first time” the hackers targeted a third-party domain used by Clinton’s personal office. It does say that around the same time they targeted 76 emails at the Clinton campaign domain, but the attempts to hack the campaign had begun months earlier. By the time Trump made his speech, the Russians had already successfully hacked the emails of John Podesta, the campaign chairman.
The reporter would later admit his mistake on Twitter, but did not delete his initial, inaccurate tweet, even as it racked up thousands of retweets.”
Some guy on FoxNews (didn’t get his name, Fox doesn’t show the names of people, just the gist of what they’re saying.)
Anyhow, he said, “Trump should ask Putin why they so clumsy”.
Putin has the perfect answer. “Because I didn’t have anything to do with it. You’ll never see what we did.”
The stories you heard about the 12 Russians yesterday took place during the Obama Administration, not the Trump Administration. Why didn’t they do something about it, especially when it was reported that President Obama was informed by the FBI in September, before the Election?
“House conservatives prep push to impeach Rosenstein”
“House conservatives are preparing a new push to oust Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, according to three conservative Capitol Hill sources — putting the finishing touches on an impeachment filing even as Rosenstein announced the indictment of 12 Russian intelligence officers for interfering in the 2016 election.
House Freedom Caucus Chairman Mark Meadows, in fact, had the impeachment document on the floor of the House at the very moment that Rosenstein spoke to reporters and TV cameras Friday.
Conservative GOP lawmakers have been plotting to remove Rosenstein for weeks, accusing him of slow-walking their probe of FBI agents they’ve accused of bias against President Donald Trump.
Democrats contend Republicans’ fixation on Rosenstein is really an effort to undermine special counsel Robert Mueller, who reports to Rosenstein and has been making inroads in his investigation of the Russian election interference plot. Mueller’s probe has entangled members of Trump’s inner circle and Trump has increasingly assailed it as a politically motivated “witch hunt” as it’s presented greater danger to him and his allies.
Conservative sources say they could file the impeachment document as soon as Monday, as Meadows and Freedom Caucus founder Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) look to build Republican support in the House. One source cautioned, however, that the timing was still fluid.
“It has not been filed today,” was all Meadows spokesman Ben Williamson would say. Williamson declined to rule out whether Meadows intended to file the document next week.
Republicans could also try to hold Rosenstein in contempt of Congress, if they want to go a step before impeachment.”
To the Trump Cultists in the House I say: Go ahead. Make my day. Impeach Rosenstein. That will just mean a few more of you will have to find work in the private sector in 6 months. Is anyone going to hire Louis Gohmert? Meanwhile, I will be eating white chocolate.
For Trump supporters who don’t believe Mueller when he says that Russia hacked Hillary’s emails and leaked them to damage her, I would like to know who you think committed those acts and then framed Russia to make Dear Leader look bad. We could do a poll this weekend. Below is a list of suspects and enemies of Dear Leader:
A. The 400 lb. guy in the basement
B. James Comey
C. Bill Clinton
D. Seth Rich
E. Maxine Waters
F. Ben Sasse
G. The Pizza Pedophiles
H. Adam Schiff
I. Rick Weaver and HRW
J. Nordstroms
K. Stormy Daniels
L. George W. Bush
M. Australia
N. Angela Merkel
O. Trump’s 2nd grade spelling teacher
P. Miss Universe
Q. Justin Trudeau
R. Rex Tillerson
S. Barack Obama
T. Ivana Trump
U. Trump’s Intro to macroeconomics professor
V. MS 13
W. John McCain
X. Bill Kristol
Y. Fake News CNN
Z. The Pope
@12:57 That’s interesting. I wonder what would happen if Germany or Russia or China indicted our CIA agents for destabilizing their governments or spying on them. I imagine any number of Central American nations could do so with ample justification. Iran certainly has just cause from the 1953 CIA led coup, from which, it could reasonably be argued, they never fully recovered, and which contributed very much to their present condition. I will be very interested to see how these indictments affect CIA, MI6, Mossad, and the intelligence agencies of other countries.
I think it’s cute that Ricky is so naive to think that every single one of those allies he listed doesn’t do the same to us and each other, as does the US, Russia, China, Iran, etc. etc. etc..
Heck Obama tried to influence Israel’s last election and our own. Everyone does it, and every country knows it.
More reading comprehension problems for The Trump Cult. Read what has been posted here today. Read your own words.
Specifically, read 9:06. Then read the first two words from The Trump Cult @10:17.
It is all very strange. The Cult can’t understand basic economics. It can’t do basic math. It can’t even understand the meaning of its own words. Very strange.
Is completely accurate. No one will stand trial, no one will be questioned under oath, none of the alleged criminals will go to prison. There’s no extradition treaty, Russia won’t turn them over, so it’s totally, and utterly, meaningless charges.
And you know it.
So yeah….
Now that’s not saying these Russians didn’t do everything they’re accused of. They probably did. But it’s still meaningless if no one is held to account. Symbolic at best, but still meaningless.
And none of this required a special counsel to discover. The US attorneys’ offices would have done just fine, and at far less cost. You also know this.
Ricky asserts that some Trumpkin* or other here has claimed Russia did not do any hacking. Ricky points to a couple of posts in here to back his assertion.
Can anyone show how those posts, or any others here, support Ricky’s argument?
*Does it not take a lot of nerve to call an honorable man such as Chas derogatory names?
The Obama Administration did do something (though perhaps they could have done more). They launched a counter-intelligence investigation, headed by James Comey. You denounced the investigation and fired him. https://t.co/hLXEMCi5vd
SolarP, Read the last line of 9:06 and the first line of 10:17.
Let’s look @ your 1:38 post. It shows what I mean about Trumpkins being slippery. Trump has long acknowledged that Russia could have done the hacking. He also suggested the 400 lb. guy might be the guilty party.
I respect Chas. That is why I used the term “Trump supporters” at 1:10.
As I remember, you objected when I opined that the Pizza Pedophile story was another myth. In the poll, are you going with A Or G?
There is an excellent article in this issue of First Things called Fences and Neighbors; A Theological Analysis of Immigration and Borders’. Here’s the beginning:
In his famous speech (in Acts 17) to “men of Athens” at the Areopagus, St. Paul speaks of the providential ordering of God as including different nations, each having its particular boundaries. God “made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, in the hope that they might feel their way toward him and find him.” This may seem jarring today, when many have grown accustomed to thinking of themselves as citizens of the world or talking in terms of a global community. And we know, of course, that the significance of nations and national boundaries—and migration across those boundaries—is often the subject of heated political disputes.
Seldom, however, do these public arguments notice that without a sense of boundaries and limits, we may lack the language needed to express cosmopolitan desires and beliefs. It is hard to talk about the importance of “the human family” unless we have some experience of life within our particular families and the intensity of familial attachment. Without the experience of particular friends to whom we are especially attached, can we really have any idea of what it might mean to think of “friendship to all the world”? Nor could we even try to think coherently of ourselves as “citizens of the world” or members of a global community unless we had learned this language of belonging within smaller, more particular and bounded political communities. Without such focused, located experience, the “neighbor” would remain largely an abstraction—no doubt easier to love than particular individuals, and sometimes appealing for just that reason….
Unfortunate when a reporter doesn’t follow through and I have to do this:@JStein_WaPo I never said this. My team has asked you to retract this and take down your tweets. I am now respectfully asking that you follow through with what you told my team you would do. Thank you.
— Archive: Ambassador Nikki Haley (@AmbNikkiHaley) July 14, 2018
I once had a client that was in the golf course business. His business plan was to wait until some nitwit rich guy went bankrupt after spending millions on a course. He could then swoop in and scoop up the course for a song and turn a profit. He seldom if ever paid over $1 million for a course.
1. Carefully read your own 1:38 post. Note the use of the word “could”.
2. Carefully read the second paragraph @ 7:48. Note the use of the word “might”.
Trump is slippery like his cult. He didn’t deny the Russians hacked and leaked, but he said it might also have been the 400 lb. guy.
That is why I was trying to pin AJ down @ 6:13. Either you believe Mueller’s indictment or you don’t. Chas honestly said he didn’t. AJ first backed Chas, but then began to weasel @ 5:03 and 5:47.
Everyone can make their choice. You can believe Mueller or I have given you 26 other interesting options @ 1:10.
The statement in dispute is whether some Trumpkins fail to acknowledge Russia may have hacked emails. I could refer to the times of the statement, etc, but it’s kind of obvious that’s what’s being debated. You, Ricky, referred AJ to Chas’s post as an example of a “Trumpkin” not acknowledging Russia may have been involved. That’s not what Chas did at all; he made an entirely different statement.
Oh, I see what Mueller is up to. Not a bad plan actually. He’s indicted the 12 knowing they will probably not be brought to trial, but is asking the court to make forfeiture part of the deal. So any assets that can be tied to these people or their ‘companies’/Russia become the subject of forfeiture.
Regarding the hacking or spearfishing or tampering, the real problem is our lack of internal security. We’ve spent so many years convincing the world that we are just one big happy paternalistic family headed by Uncle Sam, that we have neglected to lock our own doors and windows properly. We have convinced ourselves that our hype is true, and have become victims of our own arrogance. We used to have top of the line security, but arrogance has caused us to fall behind. It probably doesn’t help that we discourage people to go into IT professions by the way we outsource their jobs right from under them.
PS:
You’re being insulting and silly, Ricky. For myself I don’t really care, but you owe an apology to Chas. If you didn’t want him implied in your insults @5:33, you shouldn’t have linked his comment. If you will insist on foolishly venting, learn to be a sharpshooter instead of using a blunderbuss. Not cool.
Aside from this dispute over a small issue, I just don’t get why every-almost literally every-post of yours, Ricky, needs to be larded down with crass insult. There are people here who could and would probably engage you in civil discourse if you weren’t such a… oh I’m not sure what the word I’m looking for is.. let’s go with belligerent.
Do you think your language is fitting for a Christian?
English and logic class is over for tonight. Try reading your 9:40 again and see if you can figure out how you missed the point of 9:23. Look at the use of the word “may” in the first line of your 9:40.
“Now that’s not saying these Russians didn’t do everything they’re accused of. They probably did. But it’s still meaningless if no one is held to account. Symbolic at best, but still meaningless.
And none of this required a special counsel to discover. The US attorneys’ offices would have done just fine, and at far less cost. You also know this.”
I interupt my working vacation to ask, have some of you already past the Rubicon where a change of mind or direction is no longer possible? Mueller found enough evidence to indict 12 Russians and you’re still not convinced the investigation should continue? This investigation has produced jail sentences, guilty pleas, and indictments ….yet still skepticism. Its quite clear an unfriendly foreign power has intereferred with your election yet still no support for Mueller to continue. Your nation is under attack….and the concern is Republican vs Democratic. Its not my country and most of time I like most Canadians enjoy the front row seats to the tragicomedy but this has me shaking my head. Mueller should be given all the resources he needs to finish before the next election. Foreign interference of elections is what great powers like US and Russia do to other countries. If Russia gets away with this, what does that reduce America to? And if they get away with it because of Republican obstruction what does that make the Republican party?
A special counsel was needed for none of this. US Attorneys could handle it just fine. That’s what they do. Mueller was only put in place to get Trump.
And he’s failed, because there’s no there, there.
It has produced 5 guilty pleas, 1 from Flynn, which is up in the air and even the judge is losing patience with Mueller’s constant delays. The others are all process crimes that have nothing to do with Trump or his campaign.
He’s indicted 20 some Russians as well, who will never stand trial or answer the charges. A total waste, which also could have been handled by the DoJ and US Attorneys.
It’s a fishing expedition, always has been. But all they’ve caught are little fish. The big one got away.
Accept it and move on. Everyone else except the rabidly partisan and those with an anti-Trump agenda pretty much has.
“Foreign interference of elections is what great powers like US and Russia do to other countries. If Russia gets away with this, what does that reduce America to? ”
So you admit the US does it too. Good.
What it reduces us to is the same as everyone else who plays the international espionage game. You win some, you lose some, you learn and move on. You ensure it doesn’t happen again.
Mueller can accomplish none of that. Your point is irrelevant.
Mueller was appointed because Trump fired Comey and quickly confessed on live TV that he did it because of the Russia investigation. Rosenstein did what any competent, honest Deputy Attorney General would have done.
HRW, We are not getting any votes in my 1:10 poll. We should try campaigning harder. I confess that I have met both big and little Bush and my son had multiple meetings with Barbara Bush while in college. Do you have any ties to Soros or Obama we can broadcast?
A US attorney could easily do it but Mueller is aleardy hard at work and has produced some results. In military terms its like changing beaches halfway through the first day.
Great powers all interfere. Its part of the great game. But when one great power interferes in an other great power’s domestic affairs, a response must be made. To shrug it off is to reduce your country to a lesser status, a subservient country. If you want to remain a great power you need to bury the partisan hatchet, let Mueller do his work and then respond.
Ricky …my brother met Jeb, Rubio but turned down a chance to meet Trump. He lives in Sioux county Iowa where all Republicans gather every four years. I on the other hand didnt even vote for Trudeau
hwesseli @10:45 I don’t know how anyone could watch the plainly biased and arrogant testimony of Peter Strozk at his Congressional hearing and not seriously question the impartiality of the Mueller investigation. The fact that Strozk was tapped to be part of it at all shows partisan bias—or perhaps ignorance.
I do agree that the attempted interference in the elections should be uncovered and answered harshly. But I believe the current investigation is very partisan because from the beginning it has been an attempt to delegitimize the President . I watched Peter Strozk refuse to answer any questions by Republicans about who was being investigated because ‘it is an ongoing investigation’. Comey did not have a problem revealing that he was investigating the President’s campaign team, and by implication, Trump himself. Comey, like Strozk, had a political agenda and they were both shameless. These guys are vipers in my opinion.
Trust is required for the kind of investigation we need now, and it is lacking. Yet, if Mueller can focus on the actual problem of foreign hacking, spearfishing, and tampering, we might still learn what needs to be done to prevent this from happening in the future. But there is not one bit of evidence that the President is in any way complicit in these activities, so all the media, Democrat and Never-Trumper harping is a purely partisan sideshow. I don’t see how that helps further our national security or the investigation at all.
Ricky – Your problem with people using the words “might” or “may” seems to show that you will only give credit to those who completely believe as you do. Allowing that something “may” be true isn’t good enough for you. To me, those words signify that one is acknowledging the possibility, but hasn’t been completely convinced yet. What is wrong with waiting for further evidence before being completely convinced?
And last I looked, an indictment is not a guilty verdict. Isn’t there a saying that a good prosecutor can indict a ham sandwich? You are arguing with and insulting people who are acknowledging that these things may have happened, and are waiting for further evidence. They are not completely denying the possibility and closing their minds.
I like you, Ricky. Excuse me for sounding like a scolding mother, but lately you have been more caustic and belligerent in your tone than ever before. You are better than that.
Kizzie, I confess I gave up all attempts to have rational discussions with Trumpkins several months ago, and have generally been hanging around to tease and torment them. That is easy to do because they are forced to defend the indefensible on a daily basis, but I agree it is probably not a good thing.
“If we needed more proof (atop the media panic) that President Trump nominated the right SCOTUS candidate here it is:
“Kavanaugh represented, on a pro bono basis, six-year-old Elian Gonzalez after the Immigration and Naturalization Service decided to return him to Cuba. Kavanaugh was among a series of lawyers who sought legal injunctions to stop INS…from sending the boy back to Cuba…”
Whoops! I already hear the caterwauling about “separating immigrant children from their parents!” So let’s clear that up first:
The genuine issue during the Elian Gonzalez circus had NOTHING to do with “parental rights,” as the Castro/Fake News Media/ Democrat propaganda campaign claimed (and many half-wits swallowed.) Instead it was: should a mass-murdering, terror-sponsoring foreign dictator trample on the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights with the compliance of a U.S. president.
Well, a Clinton was in the White House. So naturally, despite the best efforts of people like Brett Kavanaugh, the communist dictator whose lifelong dream was to nuke the U.S., whose own “courts” channeled Stalin’s during the Great Terror, and whose sidekick Che Guevara boasted that “judicial procedures are an archaic bourgeois detail” –the whims of this mass-murdering international terrorist and criminal easily prevailed over the U.S. Constitution.
After all, even lifelong liberal Democrats like Alan Dershowitz and Harvard‘s Lawrence Tribe gagged at the unconstitutionality of Elian’s kidnapping by the INS (on Fidel Castro’s orders as obeyed by Bill Clinton and transmitted to Eric Holder, Janet Reno and ultimately the INS.)
“They (the Clinton administration) acted lawlessly. They should have gotten a court order. They didn`t go for a court order because they knew they couldn`t get one. It`s a dangerous day for all Americans. (Alan Dershowitz, April 25, 2000.)”
“Watching FBI agent Peter Strzok battle with Congress, my initial reaction was pure anger. His repeated, arrogant insistence that he had done nothing wrong despite tons of evidence to the contrary convinced me he deserved immediate firing — if not the firing squad.
Gradually, though, anger gave way to amazement as Strzok grew increasingly combative and condescending. Given his predicament, the sneering and smirking were stupid, and yet he persisted.
Who is this jerk, I wondered, and how in the @#$% did he get to be a big shot at the FBI? And why are taxpayers still paying for the privilege of his malignant presence on the FBI payroll?
My answers can be summarized in four names: James Comey, Jeff Sessions, Rod Rosenstein and Christopher Wray. They are chief culprits in the death of public trust in the Department of Justice.
The cause of death was murder, and it was an inside job.
Strzok, whose voluminous texts with his office lover show him to be a king of partisan bias, rose to leadership positions under former FBI director Comey — and it shows. Comey’s self-righteousness was his ultimate undoing, but not before he led the agency into a double death grip of corruption and rank partisanship.”
“Sen. Rand Paul, discussing Russia’s interference in America’s 2016 presidential race, claimed Sunday that all countries meddle in foreign elections.
“I think really we mistake our response if we think it’s about accountability from the Russians. They’re another country; they’re going to spy on us,” the Kentucky Republican said on CNN’s “State of the Union,” a day before President Donald Trump’s scheduled meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki.
“We’re going to do the same,” Paul added.
Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein on Friday announced special counsel Robert Mueller’s indictment of 12 Russian military officials for hacking the Democratic National Committee in 2016.
But Paul maintained that such cyber-intrusions into other countries’ elections were common on the world stage, suggesting the United States — while not “morally equivalent” to Russia — provoked the Kremlin’s stealth attacks.
“What does it say about Robert Mueller that he picked him for his team?”
“In his testimony, Strzok refused to answer questions about the Mueller investigation. He cited possible FBI investigations in refusing to answer various questions relating to the bureau. He refused to share his text messages. He claimed that “if I were permitted to answer, I would,” as though legal advice from a bureaucracy trumps a U.S. Congress subpoena. The deep state imagines itself a fourth branch of government that supersedes the older three branches.
Under subpoena by the representatives of the public, Strzok showed the same contempt for democracy he displayed in 2016, when the unelected bureaucrat imagined it his duty to use his position for political purposes to save the American people from themselves. His former FBI colleague and lover Lisa Page showed similar contempt in ignoring a subpoena to appear before a congressional committee this week. Best to let Strzok testify publicly to get their stories straight.
When Strzok deigned to respond to questions, his responses raised more questions. He said “I don’t recall” in regard to sending the text vowing that “we’ll stop” Trump’s election. Later he claimed to remember much, such as sending it late at night in the context of “Trump insulting the immigrant family of a fallen war hero.” He maintains that the American people, and not the FBI, served as the antecedent to the first-person pronoun. The answer did not come with a laugh track.
An FBI agent who used foul means to spy on private citizens lamely cries foul that the Inspector General and Congress publicizes the text messages he sent on a taxpayer-funded FBI phone. Even if one were to accept the dubious premise that Strzok’s politics did not bias him as an investigator, his misuse of a government communications device buttresses the idea that he found Hillary Clinton’s use of a private server — accessed by foreign spies — to store classified material a nonissue (and certainly not “grossly negligent”). In the upside-down world of the deep state, what public officials do in public office should remain private but what private citizens do to elect the candidate of their choice merits state surveillance and spying.
Strzok led the FBI investigation into Clinton’s emails and the accusation that the Trump campaign colluded with the Russians. Robert Mueller selected him to work on the special counsel’s investigation. What made the full-throated partisan totally inappropriate for work on any of these investigations made him the perfect pick to his FBI superiors and Mueller. What they did, more so than anything that Strzok did, represents the real scandal.
Wandering Views 
Michelle Goldberg has been visiting with German leaders. I have been saying that “Idiocy has won.” However, I can also see her point of view.
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America owes a huge debt of gratitude to Rod Rosenstein and Bob Mueller. At a time when so many Republicans have lost their courage, their morality and their brains, those two have stood for integrity and the rule of law. Many others on their staffs also deserve great credit.
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https://twitter.com/denversmkc/status/1017974222386106368?s=21
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Jonah was very good this week. His take on the Strzok hearing was very funny.
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Goldberg saved the best for last, right before the dog updates:
The human mind has a tendency to impose causation and narrative on random events. And lots of people do this with Trump. When he threw Theresa May under the bus on Thursday night (the same day he was boasting about a great letter he got from Kim Jong-un), the immediate response from many on the left and the right was that he was up to something. He wasn’t. He just didn’t know what he was doing. That’s why at the press conference on Friday morning, he walked it all back. There was no plan, there was just his id galloping freely out of his mouth.
Just look at some of the things that he’s said overseas. He made up countless statistics about NATO expenditures and contributions. He, again, went on about how he was the first Republican to win Wisconsin in ages — a vital issue to the NATO alliance — insisting that Reagan lost the state. Reagan won Wisconsin twice. He said his father was born in Germany. That was his grandfather. He said, again, that he “understands nuclear” because his uncle was a physicist. In the Sun interview — which he now insists is fake news — he said many strange things, but my favorite was this
“You know, a poll just came out that I am the most popular person in the history of the Republican Party — 92 percent. Beating Lincoln. I beat our Honest Abe.”
For what it’s worth, Gallup introduced the first modern poll in 1936.
In the press conference Friday morning, he was asked if he would take to Twitter on his way home on Air Force One and bad mouth his allies — as he did after the G-7 summit. Trump replied:
“No, that’s other people that do that. I don’t. I’m very consistent.”
“I’m a very stable genius,” the president added.
Look, it’s funny trolling, I guess. And his genius at trolling is indeed very consistent. But come on. This is serious stuff. We may need to rethink all sorts of things, and I’m open to serious arguments about doing so. But in order to seriously rethink such things, it would be helpful to have a serious president who thinks.
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Question
What is the penalty for interfering in an election?
What is the penalty for hacking an e-mail?
Suppose the 12 Russians did come over to face their accusers?
We have already seen that Muller can’t present it’s case against the Russian company it accused of malfeasance.
It seems that all the accusations of election tampering are against people who can’t/won’t defend themselves.
We need to see evidence.
Otherwise, I don’t believe none of this.
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Exactly Chas.
Meaningless charges that will never result in anyone suffering for their crimes. Mueller knows this too, but he’s just trying to save face by charging someone, anyone will do really, so that he doesn’t look like he wasted millions for nothing.
But that is what he’s done.
Ignore the desperate cries of the shills like Ricky. As evidenced above, they’ll latch on to and believe anything that comes down the pike. They’re too deeply invested to give up now, so it’s on to the next nonsense thing, and then the next fake scandal, or the next alleged collusion. But in the end, it’s all just noise.
Like the little boy who cried wolf, it’s gotten old, to the point where hardly anyone but the most partisan actors are even listening anymore. And so they rage………
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More fake news spread among the true believers in the media. This is how fake news gains traction, when reporters are too lazy to do a little background work first and verify facts. It spreads when other lazy reporters share wrong info.
http://freebeacon.com/politics/wapo-reporter-falsely-claims-russian-hackers-first-targeted-clinton-campaign-urging-trump/
“A Washington Post reporter falsely claimed Friday that the beginning of the Russian effort to hack Hillary Clinton’s campaign emails came the very same day that her opponent, Donald Trump, called on Russia to find Clinton’s State Department emails.
On July 27, 2016, Trump spoke directly to Russia during a news conference. “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing,” he said, referring to Clinton’s deleted emails from her time as secretary of state.
The Trump administration would later claim the remarks were a joke, but the Clinton campaign criticized the comments at the time, saying, “This has to be the first time that a major presidential candidate has actively encouraged a foreign power to conduct espionage against his political opponent.”
After the Justice Department announced Friday that a federal grand jury indicted 12 Russian government officials for hacking the computer networks of Clinton and the Democratic Party, Washington Post reporter Christopher Ingraham tweeted a screenshot of a portion of the indictment, claiming that Russia’s hacking attempts began the very evening Trump made his remarks.”
——————-
“Ingraham’s tweet was widely retweeted and shared by other reporters and liberal pundits. He also posted a series of tweets calling the section of the indictment proof of “collusion” between Trump and the Russians.”
“Ingraham appears to have misunderstood the part of the indictment he screenshotted. It actually says that July 27 was “the first time” the hackers targeted a third-party domain used by Clinton’s personal office. It does say that around the same time they targeted 76 emails at the Clinton campaign domain, but the attempts to hack the campaign had begun months earlier. By the time Trump made his speech, the Russians had already successfully hacked the emails of John Podesta, the campaign chairman.
The reporter would later admit his mistake on Twitter, but did not delete his initial, inaccurate tweet, even as it racked up thousands of retweets.”
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Some guy on FoxNews (didn’t get his name, Fox doesn’t show the names of people, just the gist of what they’re saying.)
Anyhow, he said, “Trump should ask Putin why they so clumsy”.
Putin has the perfect answer. “Because I didn’t have anything to do with it. You’ll never see what we did.”
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Good question.
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“America owes a huge debt of gratitude to Rod Rosenstein and Bob Mueller.”
It looks like at least one of them may get what they deserve, but it ain’t gratitude. 🙂
https://www.politico.com/story/2018/07/13/house-republicans-rod-rosenstein-impeachment-719816
“House conservatives prep push to impeach Rosenstein”
“House conservatives are preparing a new push to oust Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, according to three conservative Capitol Hill sources — putting the finishing touches on an impeachment filing even as Rosenstein announced the indictment of 12 Russian intelligence officers for interfering in the 2016 election.
House Freedom Caucus Chairman Mark Meadows, in fact, had the impeachment document on the floor of the House at the very moment that Rosenstein spoke to reporters and TV cameras Friday.
Conservative GOP lawmakers have been plotting to remove Rosenstein for weeks, accusing him of slow-walking their probe of FBI agents they’ve accused of bias against President Donald Trump.
Democrats contend Republicans’ fixation on Rosenstein is really an effort to undermine special counsel Robert Mueller, who reports to Rosenstein and has been making inroads in his investigation of the Russian election interference plot. Mueller’s probe has entangled members of Trump’s inner circle and Trump has increasingly assailed it as a politically motivated “witch hunt” as it’s presented greater danger to him and his allies.
Conservative sources say they could file the impeachment document as soon as Monday, as Meadows and Freedom Caucus founder Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) look to build Republican support in the House. One source cautioned, however, that the timing was still fluid.
“It has not been filed today,” was all Meadows spokesman Ben Williamson would say. Williamson declined to rule out whether Meadows intended to file the document next week.
Republicans could also try to hold Rosenstein in contempt of Congress, if they want to go a step before impeachment.”
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To the Trump Cultists in the House I say: Go ahead. Make my day. Impeach Rosenstein. That will just mean a few more of you will have to find work in the private sector in 6 months. Is anyone going to hire Louis Gohmert? Meanwhile, I will be eating white chocolate.
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/congress-generic-ballot-polls/?ex_cid=rrpromo
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LOL. Aren’t *we* important!
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Ignore the spin….
http://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/396969-ignore-the-spin-still-no-evidence-of-trump-collusion
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A generic ballot with no names, from the usually wrong 538. 🙄
Do they have President Clinton’s recent approval numbers too?
Oh wait, that’s right, they were repeatedly wrong on that one too…… 🙄
You’ll have white chocolate, if you buy it yourself. 🙂
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Here is the indictment for those who are interested:
https://int.nyt.com/data/documenthelper/80-netyksho-et-al-indictment/ba0521c1eef869deecbe/optimized/full.pdf?action=click&module=Intentional&pgtype=Article
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For Trump supporters who don’t believe Mueller when he says that Russia hacked Hillary’s emails and leaked them to damage her, I would like to know who you think committed those acts and then framed Russia to make Dear Leader look bad. We could do a poll this weekend. Below is a list of suspects and enemies of Dear Leader:
A. The 400 lb. guy in the basement
B. James Comey
C. Bill Clinton
D. Seth Rich
E. Maxine Waters
F. Ben Sasse
G. The Pizza Pedophiles
H. Adam Schiff
I. Rick Weaver and HRW
J. Nordstroms
K. Stormy Daniels
L. George W. Bush
M. Australia
N. Angela Merkel
O. Trump’s 2nd grade spelling teacher
P. Miss Universe
Q. Justin Trudeau
R. Rex Tillerson
S. Barack Obama
T. Ivana Trump
U. Trump’s Intro to macroeconomics professor
V. MS 13
W. John McCain
X. Bill Kristol
Y. Fake News CNN
Z. The Pope
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Trump has long acknowledged Russia could have done the hacking.
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But not all Trumpkins have.
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@12:57 That’s interesting. I wonder what would happen if Germany or Russia or China indicted our CIA agents for destabilizing their governments or spying on them. I imagine any number of Central American nations could do so with ample justification. Iran certainly has just cause from the 1953 CIA led coup, from which, it could reasonably be argued, they never fully recovered, and which contributed very much to their present condition. I will be very interested to see how these indictments affect CIA, MI6, Mossad, and the intelligence agencies of other countries.
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Oh please Ricky, no one has said that. No one doubts Russia tried. But it had no effect on the election, and they’ll never answer to the charges.
And it involved no one from the Trump campaign. The only one confused here is you.
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I think it’s cute that Ricky is so naive to think that every single one of those allies he listed doesn’t do the same to us and each other, as does the US, Russia, China, Iran, etc. etc. etc..
Heck Obama tried to influence Israel’s last election and our own. Everyone does it, and every country knows it.
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More reading comprehension problems for The Trump Cult. Read what has been posted here today. Read your own words.
Specifically, read 9:06. Then read the first two words from The Trump Cult @10:17.
It is all very strange. The Cult can’t understand basic economics. It can’t do basic math. It can’t even understand the meaning of its own words. Very strange.
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Meaningless charges.
Is completely accurate. No one will stand trial, no one will be questioned under oath, none of the alleged criminals will go to prison. There’s no extradition treaty, Russia won’t turn them over, so it’s totally, and utterly, meaningless charges.
And you know it.
So yeah….
Now that’s not saying these Russians didn’t do everything they’re accused of. They probably did. But it’s still meaningless if no one is held to account. Symbolic at best, but still meaningless.
And none of this required a special counsel to discover. The US attorneys’ offices would have done just fine, and at far less cost. You also know this.
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Trumpkins can be slippery, so let’s nail this down. Are you sure it wasn’t Seth Rich, the Pizza Pedophiles or the 400 lb. guy?
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Who needs an economics textbook?
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Time for a reading comprehension quiz:
Ricky asserts that some Trumpkin* or other here has claimed Russia did not do any hacking. Ricky points to a couple of posts in here to back his assertion.
Can anyone show how those posts, or any others here, support Ricky’s argument?
*Does it not take a lot of nerve to call an honorable man such as Chas derogatory names?
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Bill Kristol with the obvious answer to 10:27.
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SolarP, Read the last line of 9:06 and the first line of 10:17.
Let’s look @ your 1:38 post. It shows what I mean about Trumpkins being slippery. Trump has long acknowledged that Russia could have done the hacking. He also suggested the 400 lb. guy might be the guilty party.
I respect Chas. That is why I used the term “Trump supporters” at 1:10.
As I remember, you objected when I opined that the Pizza Pedophile story was another myth. In the poll, are you going with A Or G?
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There is an excellent article in this issue of First Things called Fences and Neighbors; A Theological Analysis of Immigration and Borders’. Here’s the beginning:
https://www.firstthings.com/article/2018/08/fences-and-neighbors#login
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More fake news from WaPo….
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More…..
https://twitchy.com/brettt-3136/2018/07/14/fake-news-nikki-haley-compels-washington-post-reporter-to-take-down-tweets-add-correction/
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Defeated, but not yet ready to concede, here comes the next made up scandal from Democrats………..
I’m sure Ricky and the NTers will be all over it.
https://twitchy.com/dougp-3137/2018/07/14/fore-rep-adam-schiff-tees-up-another-scandal-to-try-and-explain-why-potus-wont-confront-putin/
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I once had a client that was in the golf course business. His business plan was to wait until some nitwit rich guy went bankrupt after spending millions on a course. He could then swoop in and scoop up the course for a song and turn a profit. He seldom if ever paid over $1 million for a course.
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Ricky,
Here’s the last line of 9:06:
Otherwise, I don’t believe none of this.
Here’s the line right before it:
We need to see evidence.
Explain for us morons–us people you claim can’t comprehend stuff–explain how those words of Chas’s mean that he denies Russia hacked emails.
Here’s my line at 1:38:
Trump has long acknowledged Russia could have done the hacking.
Explain what is slippery about that.
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SolarP, I already did @ 7:48.
So what will it be: A or G?
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Go ahead and walk me through it, Ricky. Where does Chas rule out Russian involvement, as you have claimed he did?
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Chas’ words @ 9:06: “don’t believe”
Rick’s words @1:10: “don’t believe”
Slippery Solar’s word @ 9:00: “denies”
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I’ll help you on the other one as well.
1. Carefully read your own 1:38 post. Note the use of the word “could”.
2. Carefully read the second paragraph @ 7:48. Note the use of the word “might”.
Trump is slippery like his cult. He didn’t deny the Russians hacked and leaked, but he said it might also have been the 400 lb. guy.
That is why I was trying to pin AJ down @ 6:13. Either you believe Mueller’s indictment or you don’t. Chas honestly said he didn’t. AJ first backed Chas, but then began to weasel @ 5:03 and 5:47.
Everyone can make their choice. You can believe Mueller or I have given you 26 other interesting options @ 1:10.
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Oh for…talk about slippery…
The statement in dispute is whether some Trumpkins fail to acknowledge Russia may have hacked emails. I could refer to the times of the statement, etc, but it’s kind of obvious that’s what’s being debated. You, Ricky, referred AJ to Chas’s post as an example of a “Trumpkin” not acknowledging Russia may have been involved. That’s not what Chas did at all; he made an entirely different statement.
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Chas was clear.
I was clear.
AJ weaseled.
Solar is either being deliberately deceptive or can’t follow the train of thought.
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Deceptive? I guess I must just be plum stupid. Can you tell me where I’m wrong in 9:40?
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Oh, I see what Mueller is up to. Not a bad plan actually. He’s indicted the 12 knowing they will probably not be brought to trial, but is asking the court to make forfeiture part of the deal. So any assets that can be tied to these people or their ‘companies’/Russia become the subject of forfeiture.
Regarding the hacking or spearfishing or tampering, the real problem is our lack of internal security. We’ve spent so many years convincing the world that we are just one big happy paternalistic family headed by Uncle Sam, that we have neglected to lock our own doors and windows properly. We have convinced ourselves that our hype is true, and have become victims of our own arrogance. We used to have top of the line security, but arrogance has caused us to fall behind. It probably doesn’t help that we discourage people to go into IT professions by the way we outsource their jobs right from under them.
PS:
You’re being insulting and silly, Ricky. For myself I don’t really care, but you owe an apology to Chas. If you didn’t want him implied in your insults @5:33, you shouldn’t have linked his comment. If you will insist on foolishly venting, learn to be a sharpshooter instead of using a blunderbuss. Not cool.
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Aside from this dispute over a small issue, I just don’t get why every-almost literally every-post of yours, Ricky, needs to be larded down with crass insult. There are people here who could and would probably engage you in civil discourse if you weren’t such a… oh I’m not sure what the word I’m looking for is.. let’s go with belligerent.
Do you think your language is fitting for a Christian?
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English and logic class is over for tonight. Try reading your 9:40 again and see if you can figure out how you missed the point of 9:23. Look at the use of the word “may” in the first line of your 9:40.
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Oh good grief how ridiculous.
And I see Debra covered a bit of what I was thinking. I prefer her version.
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Oh yes, I’m such a slippery weasel…..
“Now that’s not saying these Russians didn’t do everything they’re accused of. They probably did. But it’s still meaningless if no one is held to account. Symbolic at best, but still meaningless.
And none of this required a special counsel to discover. The US attorneys’ offices would have done just fine, and at far less cost. You also know this.”
What part of that is unclear to you?
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I interupt my working vacation to ask, have some of you already past the Rubicon where a change of mind or direction is no longer possible? Mueller found enough evidence to indict 12 Russians and you’re still not convinced the investigation should continue? This investigation has produced jail sentences, guilty pleas, and indictments ….yet still skepticism. Its quite clear an unfriendly foreign power has intereferred with your election yet still no support for Mueller to continue. Your nation is under attack….and the concern is Republican vs Democratic. Its not my country and most of time I like most Canadians enjoy the front row seats to the tragicomedy but this has me shaking my head. Mueller should be given all the resources he needs to finish before the next election. Foreign interference of elections is what great powers like US and Russia do to other countries. If Russia gets away with this, what does that reduce America to? And if they get away with it because of Republican obstruction what does that make the Republican party?
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No HRW.
A special counsel was needed for none of this. US Attorneys could handle it just fine. That’s what they do. Mueller was only put in place to get Trump.
And he’s failed, because there’s no there, there.
It has produced 5 guilty pleas, 1 from Flynn, which is up in the air and even the judge is losing patience with Mueller’s constant delays. The others are all process crimes that have nothing to do with Trump or his campaign.
He’s indicted 20 some Russians as well, who will never stand trial or answer the charges. A total waste, which also could have been handled by the DoJ and US Attorneys.
It’s a fishing expedition, always has been. But all they’ve caught are little fish. The big one got away.
Accept it and move on. Everyone else except the rabidly partisan and those with an anti-Trump agenda pretty much has.
End the witch hunt.
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“Foreign interference of elections is what great powers like US and Russia do to other countries. If Russia gets away with this, what does that reduce America to? ”
So you admit the US does it too. Good.
What it reduces us to is the same as everyone else who plays the international espionage game. You win some, you lose some, you learn and move on. You ensure it doesn’t happen again.
Mueller can accomplish none of that. Your point is irrelevant.
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Mueller was appointed because Trump fired Comey and quickly confessed on live TV that he did it because of the Russia investigation. Rosenstein did what any competent, honest Deputy Attorney General would have done.
HRW, We are not getting any votes in my 1:10 poll. We should try campaigning harder. I confess that I have met both big and little Bush and my son had multiple meetings with Barbara Bush while in college. Do you have any ties to Soros or Obama we can broadcast?
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Thanks, internet; thanks Twitter. Thanks for creating a mob of keyboard cranks, blowhards and tough guys.
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A US attorney could easily do it but Mueller is aleardy hard at work and has produced some results. In military terms its like changing beaches halfway through the first day.
Great powers all interfere. Its part of the great game. But when one great power interferes in an other great power’s domestic affairs, a response must be made. To shrug it off is to reduce your country to a lesser status, a subservient country. If you want to remain a great power you need to bury the partisan hatchet, let Mueller do his work and then respond.
Ricky …my brother met Jeb, Rubio but turned down a chance to meet Trump. He lives in Sioux county Iowa where all Republicans gather every four years. I on the other hand didnt even vote for Trudeau
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hwesseli @10:45 I don’t know how anyone could watch the plainly biased and arrogant testimony of Peter Strozk at his Congressional hearing and not seriously question the impartiality of the Mueller investigation. The fact that Strozk was tapped to be part of it at all shows partisan bias—or perhaps ignorance.
I do agree that the attempted interference in the elections should be uncovered and answered harshly. But I believe the current investigation is very partisan because from the beginning it has been an attempt to delegitimize the President . I watched Peter Strozk refuse to answer any questions by Republicans about who was being investigated because ‘it is an ongoing investigation’. Comey did not have a problem revealing that he was investigating the President’s campaign team, and by implication, Trump himself. Comey, like Strozk, had a political agenda and they were both shameless. These guys are vipers in my opinion.
Trust is required for the kind of investigation we need now, and it is lacking. Yet, if Mueller can focus on the actual problem of foreign hacking, spearfishing, and tampering, we might still learn what needs to be done to prevent this from happening in the future. But there is not one bit of evidence that the President is in any way complicit in these activities, so all the media, Democrat and Never-Trumper harping is a purely partisan sideshow. I don’t see how that helps further our national security or the investigation at all.
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Ricky – Your problem with people using the words “might” or “may” seems to show that you will only give credit to those who completely believe as you do. Allowing that something “may” be true isn’t good enough for you. To me, those words signify that one is acknowledging the possibility, but hasn’t been completely convinced yet. What is wrong with waiting for further evidence before being completely convinced?
And last I looked, an indictment is not a guilty verdict. Isn’t there a saying that a good prosecutor can indict a ham sandwich? You are arguing with and insulting people who are acknowledging that these things may have happened, and are waiting for further evidence. They are not completely denying the possibility and closing their minds.
I like you, Ricky. Excuse me for sounding like a scolding mother, but lately you have been more caustic and belligerent in your tone than ever before. You are better than that.
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Kizzie, I confess I gave up all attempts to have rational discussions with Trumpkins several months ago, and have generally been hanging around to tease and torment them. That is easy to do because they are forced to defend the indefensible on a daily basis, but I agree it is probably not a good thing.
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Well this explains why the Clinton’s came out of hiding to bash Trump’s nominee to the SC.
Nobody holds a grudge like the Clintons…..
https://townhall.com/columnists/humbertofontova/2018/07/14/brett-kavanaugh-fought-the-clintoncastro-kidnapping-of-elian-gonzalez-back-to-stalinist-cuba-n2500082
“If we needed more proof (atop the media panic) that President Trump nominated the right SCOTUS candidate here it is:
“Kavanaugh represented, on a pro bono basis, six-year-old Elian Gonzalez after the Immigration and Naturalization Service decided to return him to Cuba. Kavanaugh was among a series of lawyers who sought legal injunctions to stop INS…from sending the boy back to Cuba…”
Whoops! I already hear the caterwauling about “separating immigrant children from their parents!” So let’s clear that up first:
The genuine issue during the Elian Gonzalez circus had NOTHING to do with “parental rights,” as the Castro/Fake News Media/ Democrat propaganda campaign claimed (and many half-wits swallowed.) Instead it was: should a mass-murdering, terror-sponsoring foreign dictator trample on the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights with the compliance of a U.S. president.
Well, a Clinton was in the White House. So naturally, despite the best efforts of people like Brett Kavanaugh, the communist dictator whose lifelong dream was to nuke the U.S., whose own “courts” channeled Stalin’s during the Great Terror, and whose sidekick Che Guevara boasted that “judicial procedures are an archaic bourgeois detail” –the whims of this mass-murdering international terrorist and criminal easily prevailed over the U.S. Constitution.
After all, even lifelong liberal Democrats like Alan Dershowitz and Harvard‘s Lawrence Tribe gagged at the unconstitutionality of Elian’s kidnapping by the INS (on Fidel Castro’s orders as obeyed by Bill Clinton and transmitted to Eric Holder, Janet Reno and ultimately the INS.)
“They (the Clinton administration) acted lawlessly. They should have gotten a court order. They didn`t go for a court order because they knew they couldn`t get one. It`s a dangerous day for all Americans. (Alan Dershowitz, April 25, 2000.)”
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Cause of death… Murder. An inside job.
https://nypost.com/2018/07/14/peter-strzoks-arrogance-is-the-product-of-a-corrupt-fbi/
“Watching FBI agent Peter Strzok battle with Congress, my initial reaction was pure anger. His repeated, arrogant insistence that he had done nothing wrong despite tons of evidence to the contrary convinced me he deserved immediate firing — if not the firing squad.
Gradually, though, anger gave way to amazement as Strzok grew increasingly combative and condescending. Given his predicament, the sneering and smirking were stupid, and yet he persisted.
Who is this jerk, I wondered, and how in the @#$% did he get to be a big shot at the FBI? And why are taxpayers still paying for the privilege of his malignant presence on the FBI payroll?
My answers can be summarized in four names: James Comey, Jeff Sessions, Rod Rosenstein and Christopher Wray. They are chief culprits in the death of public trust in the Department of Justice.
The cause of death was murder, and it was an inside job.
Strzok, whose voluminous texts with his office lover show him to be a king of partisan bias, rose to leadership positions under former FBI director Comey — and it shows. Comey’s self-righteousness was his ultimate undoing, but not before he led the agency into a double death grip of corruption and rank partisanship.”
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Like a few of us have said…..
“Rand Paul on Russian election meddling: ‘We all do it'”
https://www.politico.com/story/2018/07/15/rand-paul-election-meddling-russia-722205
“Sen. Rand Paul, discussing Russia’s interference in America’s 2016 presidential race, claimed Sunday that all countries meddle in foreign elections.
“I think really we mistake our response if we think it’s about accountability from the Russians. They’re another country; they’re going to spy on us,” the Kentucky Republican said on CNN’s “State of the Union,” a day before President Donald Trump’s scheduled meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki.
“We’re going to do the same,” Paul added.
Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein on Friday announced special counsel Robert Mueller’s indictment of 12 Russian military officials for hacking the Democratic National Committee in 2016.
But Paul maintained that such cyber-intrusions into other countries’ elections were common on the world stage, suggesting the United States — while not “morally equivalent” to Russia — provoked the Kremlin’s stealth attacks.
“We all do it.” “
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The ways people get their jollies, I tell ya!
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It’s all fruit from the same poisoned tree.
https://spectator.org/who-kept-putting-strzok-in-charge/
“What does it say about Robert Mueller that he picked him for his team?”
“In his testimony, Strzok refused to answer questions about the Mueller investigation. He cited possible FBI investigations in refusing to answer various questions relating to the bureau. He refused to share his text messages. He claimed that “if I were permitted to answer, I would,” as though legal advice from a bureaucracy trumps a U.S. Congress subpoena. The deep state imagines itself a fourth branch of government that supersedes the older three branches.
Under subpoena by the representatives of the public, Strzok showed the same contempt for democracy he displayed in 2016, when the unelected bureaucrat imagined it his duty to use his position for political purposes to save the American people from themselves. His former FBI colleague and lover Lisa Page showed similar contempt in ignoring a subpoena to appear before a congressional committee this week. Best to let Strzok testify publicly to get their stories straight.
When Strzok deigned to respond to questions, his responses raised more questions. He said “I don’t recall” in regard to sending the text vowing that “we’ll stop” Trump’s election. Later he claimed to remember much, such as sending it late at night in the context of “Trump insulting the immigrant family of a fallen war hero.” He maintains that the American people, and not the FBI, served as the antecedent to the first-person pronoun. The answer did not come with a laugh track.
An FBI agent who used foul means to spy on private citizens lamely cries foul that the Inspector General and Congress publicizes the text messages he sent on a taxpayer-funded FBI phone. Even if one were to accept the dubious premise that Strzok’s politics did not bias him as an investigator, his misuse of a government communications device buttresses the idea that he found Hillary Clinton’s use of a private server — accessed by foreign spies — to store classified material a nonissue (and certainly not “grossly negligent”). In the upside-down world of the deep state, what public officials do in public office should remain private but what private citizens do to elect the candidate of their choice merits state surveillance and spying.
Strzok led the FBI investigation into Clinton’s emails and the accusation that the Trump campaign colluded with the Russians. Robert Mueller selected him to work on the special counsel’s investigation. What made the full-throated partisan totally inappropriate for work on any of these investigations made him the perfect pick to his FBI superiors and Mueller. What they did, more so than anything that Strzok did, represents the real scandal.
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